It’s been a storm in a tea cup, but in the early days of a new console’s lifespan framerates and resolutions are serious business. The official Sony website had claimed that Watch Dogs would run at 60 frames per second in full 1080p HD, a claim which Ubisoft quickly redacted. Now it has confirmed the actual numbers.
Watch Dogs will run at 900p on the PS4 and 792p on the Xbox One. Both games will run at 30 frames per second.
“Resolution is a number, just like framerate is a number,” explained Creative Director Jonathan Morin. “All those numbers are valid aspects of making games. But you make choices about the experience you want to deliver. In our case, dynamism is everything. Exploration and expression are everything. You want to have a steady framerate, but you want to have dynamism at the core of the experience. The same goes with resolution.”
By dynamism, we’re assuming Jonathan Morin is making reference to the fact that Watch Dogs is set in an open world with a focus on emergent experiences, all of which takes a heavier toll on processing power compared to, say, a shooter like Call of Duty. In hindsight, I suppose it was a little unrealistic to expect a game like Watch Dogs to run at full capacity like that.
But still, this is the next generation of consoles. Maybe the 60 frames per second, full res AAA dream is just that. A dream.
Unless you’re on PC.
Comments
68 responses to “Ubisoft Confirms The Resolution And Frame Rate Of Watch Dogs”
Still not quite sure why the consoles aren’t faster, considering how massively higher the specs are than the previous console generation.
We have what, about 16x the amount of RAM and massively faster GPUs and CPUs, yet the resolution and frame rate bumps seem minimal over the PS3/360.
It’s just a learning curve, the devs are still learning the ropes give it a year or two.
The learning curve this gen doesn’t make as much sense, given XBone and PS4 are practically just PCs now.
And not very good ones. I’m surprised that people are surprised, we’ve known these specs were bland for ages.
I would’ve granted this to any developer given the nature of the PS3’s rather alien technology at the time of launch, but in this case both consoles are running on the same architecture as a PC; Ubisoft is a long-time developer on all consoles with a very allowing budget, so it’s doubtful they’re still ‘learning the ropes’.
I’m wondering if the attention they’ve paid to previous-gen consoles has affected anything. I’m sure if they were solely focused on current-gen hardware, they could optimise the living shite out of it to squeeze the best performance possible, but in this case they’ve created an identical title for much weaker hardware – it’s likely they don’t want to deliver a much slower, less impressive version on previous-gen consoles or else there’d be very little point in making it multi-platform at all.
They still have a limit (although a higher one) on the amount of processing they can squeeze into a second. They may have run into that cap by spending too much CPU (relatively speaking) on world simulation. (Or simulating the flapping of his coat, or whatever.)
We’ve paid the price – we wanted our fancy coat-flapping, after all. 😛
Well. What can I say. I gues if I bye the game it’ll be a Pc buy for me because I learned with Bf4 900p gives me a headache and literally strains my eyes.
That said with all the talk about frame rate being just a number I am expecting poor performanceand another shoddy cross gen port being marketed as a next gen experiance. Pathetic.
If Infamous could do 1080p why can’t this? Heck my i5 and 7870 can probably max it out at 1080p maybe even with some aa. Enough shoddy cross gen ports!
Edit: For reference my i5 and 7870 run Bf4 maxed (except aa) at 60-90fps and Ac Iv maxed except nvidia features and some aa at 45fps all 1080p. The upgrade cost Les than a ps4 (all I needed was the cpu, mobo and Gpu.) plus the games are cheaper. My ps4 is currently at my gf’s because well, after Infamous I just haven’t used it much.
cross gen ports….That’s the issue for me.
DYNAMISM. I wonder how much that will be latched onto as the fallback term for dealing with criticism / complaints.
Dynamism. Exploration. Expression. Dynamism.
Dynamism.
Synergy.
Emergent gameplay.
What I remember of the initial developer DEVs for Assassins Creed (the original): “Running through the streets will deliver a dynamic experience that will be very dynamic – dynamic NPCs will pick dynamic pathways through the game environment, providing a truly dynamic experience that we as a company wish to deliver in a dynamic manner. Dynamically.”
Dynamism. Dynamism. Dynamism. Emergent gameplay that is dynamic.
DYNAMIC DYNANISM.
my perspective on the matter has been embiggened by this perfectly cromulent response.
try to say that 3 times really quickly.
Mmm… Still not sure whether to get it on Xbox one or PS4. I find the Xbox controller much more comfortable but a higher resolution on the PS4 makes it tempting…
First world problems hahaha.
Some kid in Africa is starving and I’m trying to decide which $500 entertainment unit will come up mildly better on my $4000~ TV 😉
#firstworldproblems
or you could play it on PC with an xbox controller and have the best of both worlds, a good controller and superior resolution
Ign users are crying over this. Soooooo butt hurt
Urrrggg! I don’t even want to know.
It’s amazing how one particular gaming website manages to dredge up such an amazingly childish community while others maintain a much better standard.
I mean this site’s not perfect, but it’s 1000x better than IGN as far as comments go. I don’t think it’s super regulated either, I’ve written some silly/ childish/ offensive stuff on here (as a joke) before and it’s never been pulled.
Yeah, it all started with IGN claiming Sony said that it will run 1080 60fps, the the xbox fan boy crying, then this news made a flood of memes to be spammed in comments by xboxers.
i only go to IGN for reading fanboy comments and havn’t registered there.
Kotaku is a nice place 78% of the time.
lol @ 78%
You should probably shut your f@ggot face you [insert your console affiliation here] f@ggot. #sarcasm
Go kil ur self XBOT!!!!
#Sarcasam
Why are most IGN commenters so horrendously immature and annoying? (Sorry for the mass stereotyping) I like Kotaku because it draws in much more intelligible people who genuinely care for video games, are much more knowledgeable and are prepared to have genuine discussions about things rather than throw up inexplicable GIFs and throw crap at each other.
Because they have a broader reach demographic wise. I doubt this site is frequented often by the majority of the aged 8-16 crowd.
I’m still of the view that I’d rather have bigger, better, more complex game worlds than a framerate north of 30fps.
Most of the time anyway, some games it’s nice to get 60FPS (racers mostly).
I’m not quite sure where this rock-solid expectation of 1080p and 60fps came from. Programmers have been sacrificing framerate for graphical detail for generations and I’d fully expect that to continue this generation.
Not that I’m buying that “dynamism” bullshit, from what I can see it’s just poor/ lazy coding on their part. Particularly on PS4.
1080p on the other hand….. well that really should be approaching a baseline expectation in 2014.
Not sure why you downvoted me because I agree completely with your point of view.
Maybe he doesn’t like your beard.
O my Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!
Well I can expect to see IGN do a graphics comparison video between the consoles (execpt the Wii U because that doesn’t come out til later this year) and the PC.
framerate locked at 30FPS – I’m guessing Ubisoft are going to sacriface frame rate for quality…but then again I expect frame rate drops anyways
*Happy Dance*
oh wait i forgot about their shitty Uplay launcher… *cries*
Uplay is awful. I can’t remember which game I had to use last time that used it (probably Splinter Cell: Conviction), but it wasn’t a good experience. In fact I can’t think of a single ‘launcher’ that was actually helpful. Games For Windows Live was probably the worst in recent memory, which has thankfully been scrapped. I dealt with that POS with Bioshock 2 and it completely put me off buying any game that forced you to use GFWL.
Ouch. That hurts. 6 month delay to ‘polish’ the game, and this is the result? My expectations drop even further.
They weren’t polishing, they were adding high impact sexual violence.
Ah, yes, my bad. 😉
Well… I guess that explains the graphics we saw for PS4 a couple of months ago… Choice seems to have been between 720p30 on Ultra, or 1080p60 on Medium… I’ll be getting it on PC, then.
Because GTA V was such a dreadful game as a result of it’s resolution.
You’re completely right though, and resolution aside I think GTA-V running on ps3 looks better than anything I’ve seen from this game, except for that one Nvidia showcase video which was exceptional.
Have you not realised that people aren’t judging the game itself but rather the fact that it might look like shit?
GTA5 looked absolutely awful because of it’s resolution. It was a great game but it’s a shame they didn’t leave it until next-gen to release it so it didn’t look blurry and awful.
“Absolutely awful” is a bit strong I think. Yes, the resolution and lack of AA makes it look poor, but I still find myself being constantly amazed by the excellent job they did with the textures and how detailed the world looks despite that. Not to mention the very healthy draw distance.
Make no mistake, GTA V is a visually stunning game regardless.
Not really awful looking I’ll contend, but in comparison to other games it really let itself down. The world was really detailed, remarkably so, but I attribute that to good level design as opposed to good graphics. The game looks decent at a distance but when you look at one object on its own you can see how much they had to cut corners. Look at this for example: http://imagenes.es.sftcdn.net/blog/es/2013/09/Trevor-hunting-568×241.jpg You can see this in almost every prop and piece of foliage in the game, nothing has a high enough resolution texture except maybe characters and in some instances vehicles.
What are you pointing out as being wrong with that picture?
I think it looks great!
The weapon textures, as I stated previously.
Well, you didn’t specifically mention the weapon textures previously, hence my question.
Either way I still think they look decent enough, especially considering you don’t often look at the weapons up close like that in a 3rd-person game, so it doesn’t particularly matter how detailed they are.
Who cares about graphics and frame rates? all i want Watch Dogs to have is a strong story, engaging gameplay and dare i say it… be actually fun to play.
Why not have both!
Right!? I’m friggin pumped for this game. Ubisoft have been on a roll with Ass Creed and Farcry so I’m completelly sold on this game. When did the console community start to care so much about graphics and framerate?? None of that shit matters to me. As long as the game isn’t buggy as hell and is fun to play, I’m a happy camper.
and this is the exact reason i scrapped my console pre-order, too much uncertainty with the things i care about until the last minute
Im now getting it on PC cause i was just tired of umming and arrring about whats gonna happen to the console version next.
Atleast with the PC version power tools / tweaks will hit really early depending on the final product
Plus all the awesome mods that will probably happen eventually
I cant wait till we have the mod that turns the main character into a horse with sunglasses.
Personally I’m hoping for an amusing Superman mod. Might as well put all that coded coat flapping to good use.
Glad I’ll be getting it on PC, 30fps hurts my eyes. Maybe I need glasses
hahaha i still cant believe the amount of people who really care that much about res and fps. back in my day it was all about gameplay, story and characters.
Only today, the game is identical across all platforms with the only differentiating factor being the visuals. Why not get the best visuals you can?
I’m with you dude. Will be getting on XBONE over PS4 purely cause that’s the console I enjoy more. F**K DA FRAMERATE!
I think I’d prefer 60fps with a 720p resolution. I love a higher resolution as much as the next (wo)man, but if the game requires a great deal of processing power to focus on this ’emergent gameplay’ that could make/break the game, then I would rather have that dynamic experience delivered in a 720p HD format with a smooth/flawless 60 frames per second.
This is where the Mustard Race (yeah, I’m stealing this term now) has always appealed to me – adjust the settings based on your priority for frame rates, shiny graphics, etc.
Personally, I’ve always been on the shittiest possible graphics for smoothest gameplay end of the spectrum. It was a jarring transition when I first started playing 360/PS3 games and went looking for settings to turn down when the frame rate dropped.
join us brother!
I signed in specifically to say that your Avatar made me exceptionally happy.
One among the fence 😛
We’re coming home pretty soon 🙂
MAN YOUR, BATTLESTATIOOOOONS!
Funny how people are saying that it cannot be the learning curve when they delayed the game for similar reasoning; to make the game better on the next gen consoles. Games coming out at the start of a console generation will be like this. It cant be compared to PC’s; you can change settings on a PC to make it run on that PC, you cant do that on a console. Who really cares anyway its the difference of 108p between the two, as if your eyes are going to be able to discern that.
This smells like pea soup!
No No, @Beavwa it’s Pea Sea Mustard Trace
I want to know will the 360 version have an install disc like Splinter Cell Blacklist or GTA V?
I believe you mean “retracted”. Ubisoft isn’t the CIA.
I don’t care about this news nearly as much as I care about the news that GOST has two tracks on the soundtrack.